This brief excerpt is from The Mayor of MacDougal Street, the memoirs of Dave Van Ronk (one of my heroes) page 75:
Years later, I was talking with him [Oscar Brand] and expressed my disgust that that he, or maybe someone else, had put on a show with Burl Ives, who had outraged us all by naming a string of names in front of HUAC. Oscar just quietly said, “Dave, we on the left do not blacklist.” Put me right in my place.
I mentioned this on Twitter, but haven’t put it here, just in case anyone is interested. For the 15 year anniversary of the founding of the World Socialist Web Site, I was asked to contribute a testimonial–in essence, a statement of why I read the WSWS. It can be found about halfway down on this page.
Someone recently addressed the following remark to me: ” a straight white male apparently lecturing people who are not straight white males about how they should respond to discrimination is always going to be viewed with scepticism.”
I’m going to repost my reply here, so that it’s right at the top of the page, and no one can be confused about where I stand.
1. I believe that solving problems of oppression and inequality requires, above all, a scientific understanding of the workings of the society that produces oppression and inequality.
2. I believe that someone putting more or less weight on an argument because of the race, sex, or sexual preference of the person making the argument is being unscientific, and is thus interfering with our ability to understand society and, therefore, our ability to change it.
3. I believe that such a person is, in the last analysis, acting in support of oppression and inequality.
4. I oppose those who support oppression and inequality, and I don’t give a shit what the race, sex, or sexual preference of such a person is.
Current project is miserably failing
Can’t figure out what happens now.
I don’t know to whom it should happen
And I haven’t a clue as to how.
Romantic sub-plot is a problem
Cuz I just killed off the guy’s lover.
It’s a failure as lit
But I don’t give a shit
BECAUSE I JUST SAW MY NEW COVER
The money I owe is astounding
I pay bills only under duress.
My car, it will go to the bank
And my income: The IRS.
A pit opens up right before me,
And a Damoclean sword, it does hover
I laugh like it’s funny.
Who cares about money?
BECAUSE I JUST SAW MY NEW COVER!
Bridge:
The artist must be a genius, the designer: Leonardo reborn.
It will apeal to those who love SF, historical, non-fiction, and porn.
I want to hold it and hug it and wave it from a forty-foot banner unfurled.
Life, do your damndest, cuz I got the best COVER IN ALL OF THE WORLD!
The cat has just eaten the goldfish
Then it got hit by a truck
My girlfriend said she’d rather be dead
Then to give me a last goodbye—hug.
But fine then, farewell, and so what?
Right out the door I will shove her.
She’s welcome to go
While I bask in the glow
BECAUSE I JUST SAW MY NEW COVER!
No, there’s no setting. Anyone who wants to is welcome to write one. You’re also free to put it on Youtube, if you want–just don’t bitch to me about the scansion.
I don’t know if I ever told this story and published this on LJ, and I’m too lazy to look, and I don’t care. About twenty *cough* years ago I was dating The Girl Who Broke My Heart, and we went into an Italian restaurant called Ceatti’s for Valentine’s Day (this was before she Broke My Heart, y’know). Turns out they were having a poetry contest. You had to write a poem that started, “Roses are red, violets are blue.” I don’t remember what first prize was, but third prize was dinner for two, and second prize was a silver bracelet. I won the bracelet; I never got to see the poem that beat me.
Anyway, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, here it is:
Roses are red, violets are blue
How peculiar if the reverse were true.
If roses were blue and violets were red
Would violets have the thorns instead?
Would lips be violet in poem or prose?
Would Liz Taylor’s eyes be compared to a rose?
Wine-lists would be only to smile at:
“Would you care for white, or red, or vio-lat?”
What odd confusion would ensue
If violets were red, and roses were blue.